


a milan sort of blue

by griefhoney



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: 1970s, Friends to Lovers, Insomnia, M/M, Pining, Slight Canon Divergence, mostly because anything beyond 1980 makes me sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-08-29 08:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griefhoney/pseuds/griefhoney
Summary: chronicles of insomnia and accidentally falling in love.





	a milan sort of blue

The harsh, unforgiving ring of the doorbell quite literally knocks Roger out of bed. 

He stays on the floor for a second or so, contemplating the decisions he's made that put him in this situation and the suspicious stain on the carpet near his left hand that definitely wasn't there a couple of days ago. 

Contemplation turns into dozing and it takes another shrill burst of noise to jerk him out of it. 

Brian May, of all people, is standing on the threshold of Roger's dingy one-room-and-a-half flat.

It also appears to be raining. Or at least it is according to the state of Brian's hair and the waterlogged squelch of his shoes as he sidles past Roger into the living room.

Roger watches him go, stunned into an uncharacteristic silence. He's hasn't known Brian for that long, no longer really than he's known anyone else here, and he's not really sure if they're quite ready for this stage of their friendship. 

This stage being seeing each other at hours generally unacceptable to most people. Especially when one of those people is less than appropriately dressed. 

A chill starts creeping in from the hallway outside and he hastily closes the door. The sound echoes a little too loudly and Roger tries to dispel it with an uncomfortable cough. 

Brian's sort of frozen in the middle of the living room between the sofa and what Roger likes to call the dining table. 

He looks entirely out of place; too tall and still dripping all over the bare wooden floorboards. The guitar on his back makes him look like a tall, British rip-off of the _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ and his thatch of curls, haloed by the warm light spilling out of Roger's bedroom, does nothing to lessen the unfortunate comparison.

"What are you  _doing_ here?" Roger finally asks when his vocal cords remember their purpose. It comes out rough, a barely-there rasp that makes him cringe and clear his throat. "It's what—three in the morning?" 

"Quarter past," Brian says and Roger catches a brief flash on the inside of his wrist as he checks his watch. 

"Quarter past," he echoes. 

They both dither on the spot for a second, Brian swaying like a tree unsure of its place in the world before swinging his guitar off his shoulder and sinking down onto the sofa. "I had an idea for a song," he says like it explains everything. 

"At three in the morning?" 

"Quarter past," Brian corrects, fiddling with the zip of his jacket. 

Roger stares at him. "On a Saturday," he says. "At three in the morning on a  _Saturday_?"

A few lost chords trail through the air between them as Brian picks up his guitar and blinks up at Roger who's still locked into place by the door. 

"It's a good song," he says. 

Everything sort of settles into place as he says it and Roger's half-annoyed at himself when he feels his shoulders relax, a familiar kind of understanding overpowering his longing for a good night's sleep. 

"Right, right. Let me just—" he gestures a little helplessly at his bare legs and Brian's gaze follows the movement for a moment before snapping back up again like he's been caught stealing sweets or something. 

Roger files it away under the many things he has yet to understand about the inscrutable Brian May. 

  

 *

 

"Things are alright, aren't they?"  
  
The post-show adrenaline has worn off into a dull throb at the back of Roger's head; the beat a gentle imitation of the last song they'd played. It ebbs and flows through the comfortingly hollow space behind his eyes and it's only when his elbow slips off the bar counter that he remembers to reply.  
  
Tim had disappeared long ago with the excuse of socialising since neither of the other two seemed up for the task tonight. Socialising and Roger's half-interest ended however with a petite black haired girl and the rattle of the bead curtain that led backstage.  
  
Brian's staring at him like he's genuinely waiting for a coherent answer. He's wide-eyed too, all kinds of earnest. Which means he's drunk.  
  
"Yeah, yeah— things are alright," Roger says.  
  
It's both easier and harder to lie when Brian's drunk.  
  
He tries not to think about how aimless his life feels. How aimless all of this feels. The shows, the girls, the classes he doesn't care about and Brian's three-AM-epiphanies.  
  
Roger's never been against floating aimlessly, it's part of the charm of life. Being young and free. But he wouldn't mind something – just _something_ – to guide them in the right direction, a consistent beat to follow. Something to ground him.  
  
Brian taps a calloused forefinger against his empty glass. It _tings_ clear over the general background noise, quick enough to mimic the slightly manic glint in his still wide eyes.  
  
"You could make something out of this," he says, keeping up the tinny beat and effectively breaking Roger out of his trance.  
  
"It's two in the morning," Roger says with no real conviction.  
  
"Yeah but—" he taps with more emphasis, eyebrows rising in an unspoken challenge.

 

 *

 

Freddie's better at matching Brian's erratic – some might even say non-existent – sleeping schedule. 

They're both mad, obviously. The kind of mad that creates music at a crowded pub table until the owner tells them to pack it in. They match well in that respect.

Roger's not so bad himself, mad enough to keep up, but with enough sanity to appreciate a good nap or two. Freddie doesn't like naps ( _"Why sleep during the day? You should be doing things during the day!"_ ) and he's never shied away from telling Roger so every time he finds a comfortable corner to curl up in. 

Brian, on the other hand, approaches the subject of naps like an explorer who's just discovered a new, strange species. Cautious and with a fair amount of suspicion. 

The noise Roger had managed to conjure out of him when he said that he sometimes skipped classes to nap is safely tucked away under many things he likes about the inscrutable Brian May. 

 

 *

 

Tim leaves on a night that looks and tastes like cigarette ash. Dusty and headache-inducing and he has the audacity to smile apologetically, shoulders shifting in an uneasy shrug. 

It kind of feels like someone just took Roger's drum kit and threw it at the back of his head, knocking him over and over and over until he's just a bloody pulp on the pavement. Graphic, but Roger's drunk and probably angry. 

"I'm sorry, lads," Tim says with another one of those shrugs. "It was nice while it lasted." 

Roger kind of feels like throwing up. 

Tim leaves.

Roger's not entirely sure when or how but when the smoke in his eyes clears somewhat he's gone and it's just him and Brian in a damp pub parking lot with only the wind and the perpetual hum of the London's streets for company. 

A crunch of gravel pulls Roger back out of his haze of self-pity. 

Pebbles skid and tumble across the cracked pavement as Brian takes one, large step in the direction of the street. His fingers are clutching the neck of his guitar like he's trying to strangle it and while his face is cast in shadow Roger can still tell what's going through his mind by the line of his shoulders. 

"Bri, he's gone," he says, voice cracking slightly at the edges, "c'mon, there's no point." 

Brian doesn't listen but keeps on weaving between patches of faded yellow light and potholes until he's just a dark silhouette against the grimy bright city backdrop. 

 

 *

 

"Isn't  _Queen_ a bit, y'know... pretentious?" 

Freddie grins down at him from where he's perched on the armrest of the sofa like some kind of glorified cat. 

"That's the whole  _point,_ Roger-me-dear! What else do we have left?" 

Not entirely convinced Roger turns to Brian for his opinion. 

A pause stretches out between them like chewing gum and Roger breaks it by throwing a pencil at what little he can see of the top of Brian's head. After a second of tense silence, Brian slowly unfolds himself from where'd been bent almost double over what Roger can only presume is a very important essay. 

There's a tightness around his eyes that bleeds into the rest of his body, leaving him hunched and tense. 

"I like it," he replies after another second of agonizing silence. 

" _Yeah_?" Freddie says before Roger can so much as open his mouth. 

The pencil comes sailing back through the air and lands neatly on a stack of magazines Freddie had dug out from the sideboard. 

"Yeah," Brian repeats, ducking back over his essay before any of them can catch the full extent of the stupid grin on his face. However the glimpse Roger catches makes the name  _Queen_ settle a bit more comfortably in his mind. 

 

 *

 

John, Roger decides after having only met him a couple of times, is probably one of the best people alive. 

He's funny and stubborn in a quiet sort of way that catches them all off-guard. Never enforcing his space upon them he appears, quiet but loud when needed and Roger becomes accustomed to him quicker than he did even with Brian. 

They go through bassists like a teenage girl goes through clothes but in the end, they find themselves circling back to John who, in all his 20-year-old wisdom, doesn't come across as all that surprised. 

When Brian finally, officially asks him if he wants to be in the band Freddie chokes on his drink and says, "Hold on just a second. I thought he—isn't he already in the band?"

 

 *

 

They play until Roger feels like he might faint. 

In front of him, Freddie sways and croons into the microphone, cradling it like it's precious. A golden kind of energy seems to come off him in heady waves and even after so long the people at the very front of the crowd still look flushed and entranced. 

If it weren't for the aching tightness in his lungs and the sores on his palms he'd be feeling quite the same way. 

But he doesn't so he closes his eyes and tries to focus. Tries to focus on nothing but the ache in his arms, the steady thrum of John's bass and the heartsick song Freddie's willing into existence. 

At some point, the sounds tip to the left, like a scale that's been in balance for too long and Roger opens his eyes. 

Brian's standing in front of him, one foot resting on the slightly raised platform and bloodied fingers skating up and down the neck of his guitar with such ease and fluidity that it makes Roger momentarily forget his growing discomfort. 

And maybe Roger's a bit delirious. Maybe he's slightly drunk on exhaustion and a full house but Brian right now – the Brian in front of him, with his bloody hands, his long-ish hair haloed by red and pink and dressed in a T-Shirt that's too tight because it's not his – looks a bit like an angel. 

A strange, tall rock 'n roll angel. 

"Are you alright?" 

Brian's voice comes as if from a great distance. As if he's yelling down at Roger from a cliff. 

With some effort, he manages to nod and even twist his mouth up into a shaky smile. "'m fine," he rasps out before Freddie leaps into a great, lovely heartbroken wail and he loses Brian to the roar of the crowd. 

 

The ride home feels more like inter-galaxy space travel than navigating narrow London streets. 

Roger knows for a fact that he's not driving so someone else must be. Hell, he doesn't even remember how he got into the van let alone how he got the passenger seat. He knows Freddie's not driving because he doesn't feel motion sick and he can hear John behind him complaining about the club's lousy sound system. 

With some effort, he manages to peel his forehead away from the deliciously cool window only to find Brian already looking at him, face an abstract  _Kunstwerk_ of shadows and soft yellows. 

"Back with us?" Brian asks.

"Barely," he croaks and folds back against the van door. 

He can feel one of Brian's half-glances skid over him and then, "I've offered the others a place on my floor just for tonight—do you...?" 

"I've slept in worse places," Roger mutters before Brian can stumble the rest of the way through that proposal. 

 

Roger wakes up with a dry throat, a pounding headache and John's left foot lodged somewhere under his ribs. Not the worst nor the most compromising position he's ever woken up in but it could be better. 

A groan that does nothing to improve the pain in his temples forces its way out of his throat before he's even fully conscious and it takes another minute or two for him to free himself from an assorted tangle of limbs most of which seem to belong to John. 

Finally free and feeling slightly sick – woozy in a way that makes his stomach cramp – he stumbles off down a narrow hallway in search for the bathroom. 

He's gone about four-and-a-half steps when he notices a narrow beam of orange light cutting through the inky darkness in front of him and he comes to a halt, staring blearily at the source. The source is a door, open just wide enough to allow some light to spill out over the linoleum floor and his bare feet. 

Hesitating slightly he knocks on the door and pushes it open. 

Brian's sitting, cross-legged and very much awake on his bed, bathed in the warm glow of the lamp on his desk. 

He looks up when Roger slumps against the doorframe, surprise tugging the corners of his mouth up into something almost like a smile. 

" _Why_?" Roger asks, gesturing limply at the light.

Brian shrugs. "Couldn't sleep." And then, "Had an idea for a song." 

"Yeah? What" – a yawn interrupts his question – "what kind of song?"

Another shrug and Roger, who's still very much in the process of understanding the inscrutable Brian May, realises that he's accidentally trodden on some precariously thin ice. 

"Love song," Brian replies shortly, whatever smile might've been playing on his face fading away into a carefully blank expression.

"A love song," Roger repeats, nodding. "That's good, that's good. Who doesn't love a good love song?"  

There's a layered pause as Brian stares at him for a bit before finally saying, "It's about unrequited love." 

Fighting back another yawn Roger nods and Brian's face swims out of focus as tears gather in the corners of his eyes. With them comes a fresh wave of pain and nausea, which floods his senses with a similar effect to being smacked across the back of the head with a sledgehammer and it takes actual physical effort on his part to stay upright. 

"You should get some sleep, mate," he says, blinking furiously.

But Brian waves him off with a grin that doesn't feel entirely real even too Roger who can't see it properly. "When I finish this," he says. 

By this, he means the song and Roger, for once, is in no mood to argue. 

"Well—g'night then." 

Thoughts covered in orange light and a thin, but persistent layer of pain Roger forgets about his quest for the bathroom and falls into a fitful sleep filled with malfunctioning vans, windy Norfolk beaches and unfinished songs. 

 

 *

 

It's taken Roger almost two years to perfect the art of storming out and on one windy, starless night – so late it's almost early – he reaches a new peak. 

Brian's hunched over the studio's soundboard wreathed in a grey haze of static, pale and white-knuckled whereas Roger is flushed and fuming. The air in the small, low-ceilinged room smells like thunder and cigarettes. 

"If you would just  _listen_ ," Roger grits out, nails digging crescents into the palms of his hands. "I'm the one playing those fucking drums and I  _know_ for a  _fact_ that they sound like absolute shit." 

"They  _don't_." There's a snarl lurking just underneath Brian's tone, breaking through at the edges where his resolve to be the bigger person is the weakest. 

It mimics and taunts the blood roaring in Roger's ears.  

"Just because your fucking guitar sounds perfect doesn't mean that the rest doesn't— _God_ , you self-righteous prick, just fucking accept that you can't know everyt—"

Brian twists around his chair with a kind of vicious fury that almost makes Roger take a step back. He looks gaunt and a little wild-eyed in the barren studio lighting, misplaced anger adding a couple of inches to his already impressive height. 

"Then go back in there," he hisses, the underlying snarl now leaking through every syllable, "and do it all again.  _Go on_. If you're so fucking upset." 

The roaring in Roger's ears pitches in volume and then a tambourine is hurtling through the air, only narrowly missing Brian's head. It crashes against the window looking into the recording booth and the next thing that goes is an empty coffee cup that shatters against the glass, cheap porcelain flying through the air and all over the soundboard. 

The silence that follows is deafening and there's an itching behind Roger's eyes that's half rage, half the sudden, mindnumbing urge to cry. 

He leaves Brian – ashen-faced and frozen – to the residual chaos and rushes out into the fluorescent murkiness of the early morning.

 

 *

 

The next day there's a paper cup of coffee waiting for Roger. It's too sweet and lukewarm, but the loose piece of paper it's pinning down leaves no room for doubt to its purpose. 

 _I figured it out_ , it says in Brian's quick, slanting handwriting and it's as close as either of them is going to get to an apology. 

 

 *

 

Roger's not entirely sure what time it is when he wakes up. He knows a few things though, like the fact that his neck hurts and that the passenger side's window is still decidedly broken, jammed in place and letting chilly, probably-nighttime air flood into the van. 

But it could be worse. At least they have a driver now – a burly man with a Northern accent who calls everyone  _son_ – and Roger's wrapped in two coats and muffler that isn't his and isn't Freddies which must mean that it's his sister's. It smells like high street perfume and homesickness. 

Blinking against the dryness in his eyes he sits up, trying to take in his surroundings. 

Freddie's passed out in the back seat, curled up against the chill and with one of his mother's shawls wrapped around his throat and face. 

In the seat right behind Roger is John, face almost entirely hidden in a scarf and the turned up collar of his coat. He looks very young when he's asleep, pale in the rhythmic flashing of the streetlights. 

And in the seat across from Roger is Brian with his legs pulled up to his chest and a notebook balanced on his knees. Perfectly still but very obviously awake. 

"You _serious_?"

Brian and the air surrounding him flinch when Roger speaks, his voice loud even over the steady rumbling of the car engine and the whistling of the wind. 

"You're awake," Brian croaks. 

The seat creaks as Roger tries to shimmy into a more comfortable position. "Fucking apparently," he mutters and then glances at Brian. "You should try and get some sleep," he adds, too tired and cold to fill his tone with much sympathy. 

"Can't sleep in moving vehicles," Brian replies simply and Roger recognises a lost battle when he sees one. 

A minute or two of almost-silence falls over them, only briefly interrupted by the sleepy humming of their driver. It's something sweet and slightly off-key, maybe from the radio or maybe it's nothing at all. 

"Well, what're you doing then?" Roger finally asks, sliding out of his seat and over into Brian's without waiting for permission. 

He looks even paler and more miserable up close, the skin around his eyes blue and thin with fatigue and cold and in a fit of goodwill Roger unwraps the muffler and tries to shove it into Brian's hands, who promptly shoves it right back. 

"I was gonna write a song about the stars but" – he holds up the notebook for Roger to see; it's filled with crossed-out scribbles and something that looks suspiciously like a maths problem – "it sort of turned into, y'know, other stuff." 

"Right— _physics_ ," Roger says, nodding wisely and it manages to bring an uneven grin to Brian's face.

"You're still doing all of that then? Uni and stuff?" 

There's a dull  _clunk_ as the notebook slips off Brian's knees and his fingers find a new occupation by picking at a small hole in his jeans. 

"Well, I've thought about breaking it off—"

Roger snorts, "It's uni not a girlfriend, Bri," which earns him a swift kick in the shin. 

"I guess it just depends on where all of this is going, y'know? I don't want to make any rash decisions." 

"Oh, it's going somewhere alright," Roger says, shifting a little closer as an especially chilly gust of wind fills the van. "I mean—fuck, we have a driver now. We're going up in the world, I'm telling you." 

"You think?" 

"I know so. And anyway, you can get a PhD whenever you want but being a rock star? It's either now or never, right?" 

The gloom partially hides the expression on Brian's face, which is mostly just a mass of shadows with only a few smudges of light on his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. Not much of the irregular light from outside makes it past his hair and the fogged up windows, but Roger likes to think that he can sense a smile in his voice when he says, "I guess—I guess you have a point."

"'Course I do," Roger mumbles and hides a yawn behind a stiff, frozen hand. 

"Are you going to sleep here?" 

Caught, but too tired to be embarrassed Roger nods. 

Brian looks at him for a second and then shifts around in his seat a little, silently offering Roger his shoulder.

 

 *

 

"I swear I could be a tour-guide here by now." 

That earns Roger a sharp jab in the ribs by one of Brian's bony elbows and the less than dignifying sound that escapes him echoes around the partially deserted room. High ceilings and murky paintings glare down at him and he glares right back. 

"Don't be dramatic," Brian sighs for what's probably the 9th time that day. 

A few feet away from them John, who's trapped in one of Freddie's possessive one-armed hugs, snorts, making his view on Roger's dramatics quite clear. 

"I just don't see _why_ ," Roger starts, indignantly rubbing his bruised ribs, "we have to come here every damn week." 

"It's free," Brian offers. 

"And cool," John adds. 

"It's  _cold_ and I'm hungry." 

Freddie who's been silently staring at a large, chaotic painting for the entirety of their conversation, briefly detaches himself from John's side, rummaging around in his jacket pockets before pulling out a slightly squashed  _Mars Bar_  and turning to throw it at Roger. 

"Get caught and it's on you," he says before latching back onto a resigned, but not entirely unhappy John. 

An official-looking lady dressed in all black rounds the corner onto their stretch of the 18-hundreds and all hope for a meagre, sticky breakfast melts into the floor. 

"There are fewer people in the modern art section," Brian mutters almost directly into his ear, looming up behind him. 

Roger chooses to blame his uneven heartbeat on shock and not on anything remotely to do with Brian's exasperated grin or the hand on his back as he pushes him in the right direction. 

 

 *

 

Boston spreads out beneath them, sprawling and unfamiliar. Straight, no-nonsense streets interspersed by patches of green and grey where a lone sky-scraper reaches up into the sky.

Then the plane tips to the right and the view is replaced by a dreary, muddy-blue sky. 

Miserable and stuck in a cramped window seat Roger tries to busy himself with an airline magazine, but the prices and the illustrations on the safety pamphlet make him feel vaguely sick and he finally turns to what's actually occupying the majority of his thoughts. 

Brian's passed out in the seat next to him, impossibly long legs folded awkwardly in the little space there is. 

They've been trying to get him to sleep for the past day or two, saving the best hotel beds for him and sneaking him calming teas whenever they could, to no avail. 

But now – god-knows how many miles up in the sky – exhaustion has finally managed to knock him out for the count.  

There are blue and purple shadows painted under his eyes, darker and more pronounced against the sickly tint of his skin. He looks hollowed out, bony fingers folded over his stomach like he's having a cheeky little nap and not sleeping the sleep of the stupidly-sick. 

The plane rights itself again and the ocean blinks up at them, cheerful and sparkling and obviously bad at reading the mood. 

"You should try to get some sleep." 

Freddie's leaning over the back of their row of seats, looking as haggard and drained as Roger feels. The strange American air hasn't done any of them much good. 

"Can't," Roger says with a shrug he hopes looks nonchalant. 

There's a pause and when Roger manages to tear his gaze away from Brian's sleeping form he gets the full glare of one of Freddie's trademark _looks_ ; the one that he reserves for when he's trying to pry the truth out of someone. Roger's been getting them a lot lately. 

It crawls under his skin and into his bones like some kind of well-meaning parasite. 

And then the silence collapses. 

"Well, suit yourself," Freddie says and slips back out of sight. 

 

 *

 

Roger wakes up to Freddie looming over the bed, dishevelled, half-dressed and pissed off. He has a spare pillow tucked under one arm and murder in his eyes, visible even in the semi-darkness. 

There's someone in the bed with him – a girl maybe – until he investigates further and comes across John's decidedly flat chest and blearily remembers the circumstances and the language barrier that had landed them in a queen-sized bed together.  

"He's driving me up the  _fucking_  wall," Freddie grits out in a harsh whisper. 

 _He_  being Brian and the wall being the one through which Roger can distantly make out the thrumming of a guitar, soft and melancholy in the blue darkness of the night.

"Wha—" he starts, trying to sit up. 

"I could  _stand_  the guitar playing," Freddie continues, clambering onto the foot of the bed, "but then he starts bloody  _pacing_  around like—like we're under siege or something."

"We kinda are th— _ow_! That's my  _leg_ , dickhead."

"Shove over then. It's a big bed, c'mon." 

Begrudgingly Roger tries to shimmy closer to his edge of the bed. "T'isnt if you're sharing with— _watch it will you_?" 

With a creak and a sigh, Freddie collapses between them and immediately turns onto his stomach to punch his pillow into a more comfortable shape. Then, after a tug of war that ends with John, who's still very much asleep, yanking most of the quilt onto his side of the bed, silence finally falls. 

"Is it an astrophysicist thing?"

Roger blinks up at the ceiling, fatigue making his thoughts slow and heavy and Brian's mournful melody, which is still drifting through the air above their heads doesn't help much. "What?" He finally croaks. 

"Not sleeping? Is that like" – Freddie swipes a hand through the air, narrowly missing Roger's face – "a science thing." 

"Fuck—why should I know?"

Another vague swipe. " _Biology_. That's a science right?" 

If Roger had the energy he would've laughed, but he doesn't so leaves it at, "You were a fuckin' art student, mate. Do you even know how to spell astrophysicist?" 

The bickering drags on for a bit until John wakes up and tells them to shut up.

In the end, Roger drifts off, content and with a melody that isn't his swirling around his brain. 

 

"Where are the others?" Brian asks over breakfast. Toast in one hand and question mark hovering almost visibly over his freshly washed hair. 

The hazy early morning light filtering through the windows catches the bags under his eyes and smudge of jam on the left corner of his mouth and Roger's thoughts are briefly filled with Freddie's teasing laugh and interplanetary dust before he shakes himself back into the present. 

"Sightseeing," he replies. 

"At 6 in the morning?"

Roger snorts into his tea. "You're up at three making music, so I don't think you're in a position to be scandalised." 

There's a pause as Brian chews on his toast, eyes shifting over Roger's face like he's weighing up his options. 

"Did you hear it?" He finally asks. "Last night?" 

"Made me sleepy," Roger says, hiding whatever expression might be on his face behind his cup. 

But Brian's laugh – too loud for 6 AM – coaxes him back out again. 

"That kind of was the point," he says, laugh still flittering around his voice. 

 

 *

 

August falls upon them with an abundance of pomp, stress and nerves. 

Freddie blooms under the pressure, bright-eyed and insufferable as he's ever been. A week into their escapade he takes to drifting around the sprawling mess that is their current abode, dressed in robes and graphic T-Shirts, humming and mumbling to himself.

John, on the other hand, adapts to the stress with a layer of begrudging resignation that hides a fire which burns through his facade at the strangest of moments; like learning how to play the piano out of a confusing and very-John-like mixture of spite and love. 

Sleeping patterns deteriorate the longer the summer heat drags on and it becomes a common occurrence to walk in on at least one of them (mostly Brian) haunting the kitchen or the studio at odd hours in the early morning, armed with an idea and a restless mind. 

 

A day off falls into their laps mostly by accident. 

It's too hot, the air too heavy and suffocating for anything productive to happen. Strings, sheets of music and their thoughts stick together in one great inconceivable mess. Chords and riffs – weighed down by the heat – sink into the floor, refusing to be made into anything more.

And so all pretence at productivity ends in the garden.  

Freddie's dozing on a picnic blanket in the middle of the garden, hands drawing mindless patterns on the rough tartan material. A few feet away from him under an old, swaying cherry tree, John's passed out in a deck chair, a copy of  _Country Life_ protecting his face from the few rays of sunlight falling through the canopy of leaves. 

Someone left the radio on in the kitchen and a traffic report drifts lazily over the top of Roger's head, who's sprawled out on a blanket on the crumbling patio. 

The air is heavy, treacle-like – an English summer with delusions of grandeur – and the sky is a kind of blue that makes his eyes itch. A bottomless California swimming pool tipped on its head. 

Static and a jaunty car insurance jingle fizzle out into silence and Roger opens one eye to glare at Brian who's appeared above him with a guitar in one hand and a cup that Roger recognizes as a very late Christmas present from Freddie in the other.

A pause that makes him feel like he just swallowed a handful of sherbet stretches out between them before Brian sinks down onto the blanket by his feet, hesitant and awkward enough to make the bubbly feeling worse. 

"Listen," he says. 

And Roger listens when Brian plucks out a slightly patchy melody, a little like honey, a little like the lone cloud hovering miles above John's cherry tree. 

"S'good," Roger mumbles when he comes to stop. 

"Yeah?" 

Squinting against the sun Roger peers up at Brian who peers right back, open and unfairly warm. 

"Reminds me of somethin'."

An indulgent grin and then, "Oh yeah? Of what?"

It takes Roger a moment to remember the tail end of the melody but when he does he easily slips into a sleepy little rendition of  _Son Of A Preacher Man_ that makes the grin on Brian's face grow into almost dizzying proportions. 

"I should change it then, shouldn't I?" 

Roger snorts and flaps a hand at the other two out in the garden. "You should have a fucking rest, mate. It's too hot to work." 

Brian's fingers fumble along the strings, throwing a discordant jangle of sounds into the otherwise still air. "It's too nice of a day to sleep," he says, somehow managing to turn noise into melody and Roger's eyes slip shut again. 

"They'll be other nice days—c'mon, just for today?" 

Roger's sleepy charm normally works on most people – even John when he's in the right mood – but Brian's known him for too long, seen him half-asleep one time too many and so he meets Roger's inviting smile with a soft, accommodating one. 

"Not today, Rog," he says and starts getting to his feet. 

"I'll get you one day, y'know," Roger mutters, aiming a half-hearted kick at Brian's shins. 

The radio in the kitchen hums back to life and a weather report rattles down a list of record temperatures and England's best beaches. Members of the general public are advised to use plenty of sun lotion. 

"I don't doubt that," Brian says with a kind of sincerity that sinks through Roger's sleep-addled thoughts and right into his bones. 

 

 *

 

There's a certain kind of panic that goes hand-in-hand with waking up in a place you don't recognize. A tight, claustrophobic feeling and a hammering heart, accompanied by a dizziness that only settles when the gloom starts to wear off. 

Roger wakes up in an awful chintz armchair with a coat that smells like lint and rain draped over him and a crick in his neck. Obnoxious French windows loom to his left, revealing little of the outside world and his heart only starts to settle back into a familiar rhythm when he catches sight of a Freddie-like shape awkwardly folded onto an overstuffed sofa. 

It's chilly and after a couple of minutes of dragging in lungfuls of musty air Roger sits up, blinking against the clinging darkness. He can just about make out another human-shaped lump of shadows hunched in a far corner of the room. 

"Bri?"

No response and his voice sits in the air for a second before floating away in a draft leaking in from one of the many windows. 

"Deaky?" 

Again no reply and Roger slips off his abomination of an armchair, every muscle in his body screaming in protest and hobbles across the room to find out who he's trying to talk to. 

John is curled up on a loveseat, dead to the world and barely visible under at least three coats and a shawl that looks suspiciously like something Roger's seen Freddie's mother wear. 

"Hey—hey, John.  _John_.  _Deaks_ —wake up, c'mon."

The hand Roger had been using to nudge John awake is suddenly caught in an icy, vice-like grip and it takes a surprising amount of strength on his part to wrench himself free. 

"Where's Brian?" He whispers, trying to lean as close as he can without being in immediate grabbing distance. 

John grunts something unintelligible and then a little clearer, "Sod off." 

And sod off he does, shuffling through the gloom and out into an unfamiliar hallway. A faint yellow glow is spilling out of a half-open door at the end of the hall and Roger goes towards it, still wrapped in the coat that isn't his. 

He finds their manager hunched over a pile of documents, lit up by a lone desk lamp and the faint orange burn of a cigarette. 

"Have you seen Brian?" Roger asks, leaning around the door and blinking against the light.  

There's a pause as they squint at each other, so tired that its hard to recognize the other. "Might've said something about the Milky Way," he finally replies, voice a bleary croak. 

"The Milky Way," Roger repeats slowly. 

"Y'know—the galaxy thing." He points up at the ceiling.

 

Roger's been on the hotel roof for exactly two-and-a-half minutes and already he feels like a glorified block of ice dressed in two useless coats. The wind howls around his ears, whipping his hair this way and that in a way that chases the last remnants of fatigue out of the most cobwebby parts of his brain. 

Eyes watering and hunched against the biting cold Roger limps out of the limited shelter of the doorway and almost immediately catches sight of Brian – a tall, ghostly silhouette against the Glasgow cityscape. 

"Oh for fuck's fucking  _sake_ ," he mutters, barely audible even to his own ears. And then, raising his voice against the wind he shouts, "Hey! _Brian_!" 

A moment of nothingness is broken when Brian turns, arms folded across his chest and his hair a wild halo filled with bits of light and snow. He waves when he sees Roger, apparently oblivious to the weather and freezing temperatures. 

"Get back inside will you?" Roger calls, but the wind tears the words away from him before he's even properly spoken them. 

" _What_?"

Roger takes two more steps into the cold. "Get back— _get back inside_! You'll catch your fucking death." He wants to mime the words but also doesn't want to take his hands out of the relative safety of his pockets. 

"I wanted to see the Milky Way," Brian shouts back, obviously having not heard a single word that just came out of Roger's mouth. 

Swearing properly now Roger braves the wind and staggers out to where Brian's standing near the edge of the roof, a grin firmly fixed on his face. It might be frozen like that.

"I wanted to see the Milky Way," Brian repeats now that Roger's next to him, "but you can't see it. Look—" 

Against all his better judgement Roger cranes his neck up at the sky. The dark, endless blue is covered by a thick orange layer of light pollution and the stars glimmer only faintly through it. 

"How long have you been out here?" Roger asks, still craning his neck but this time to look at Brian. 

"Dunno—not that long I think." 

That earns him a suspicious squint. 

"Are you drunk?" It's the most plausible explanation Roger can think of for someone to go out on a windy hotel roof in the middle of fucking winter to look at invisible stars.

Brian laughs a soundless laugh and Roger blames the lurch in his stomach region on a fear of heights that he does not have. 

"No," Brian says, "no, I'm not drunk."

 _Just tired_ , is the unspoken end that gets whisked away by the wind.  

"Well then get the fuck back inside, alright?" Roger tries to sort of nudge Brian in the direction of the door down into the hotel without taking his hands out of his pockets, but it just ends with him bumping uncoordinatedly against Brian until he reaches out to hold him still. 

"I like it out here," Brian says with a shrug that almost makes Roger overbalance. 

"You—oh for fuck's sake. Are you serious?" 

Brian blinks down at him. "What?" 

"It's  _freezing_ " – Roger tries half-heartedly to twist out of Brian's grip but he's fighting a losing battle – "and you can't even see the bloody fucking stars." 

He has more to say but it all gets lost somewhere between his throat and his tongue when Brian suddenly ducks down and presses a hard, fleeting kiss to his mouth. 

It's not even a proper kiss – gone before Roger can fully process what happened – and he's at least 90% sure he's gotten better kisses from over affectionate aunts than whatever that was. He can also think of about 20 better places to have a first kiss, places that aren't a freezing Glasgow rooftop in the middle of the night. 

But all that get's lost as well when Brian ducks down  _again_ and kisses him properly and the act of pulling him closer is about the only decent reason Roger can think of that requires him submitting his hands to the icy wind. 

 

 *

 

Backstage is a flurry with activity; roadies and staff bustling in and out of their dressing room and along the narrow corridors leading up to the stage and Freddie's anxious, pre-show twirling and pacing does nothing to lessen the impression that the place is about to explode out of sheer nervous energy.  

Brian looks like he wants to pace too, but doesn't, resigning himself to staring blankly at the opposite wall. His eyes glitter like shards of glass and the shadows underneath them are hidden with some skin-coloured powder that one of the staff had managed to dig out of her handbag. 

When he catches Roger staring he grins. 

"What are you smiling about?" 

Freddie smoothly situates himself between them, kohl-rimmed gaze flickering from one face to the other in a way that's already becoming somewhat familiar. 

Shrugging Brian returns to his wall, leaving Roger to face Freddie's insatiable curiosity by himself. 

"Nothing," Roger says, looking at a stray splash of glitter on Freddie's neck instead of his face.

" _Nothing_?" Freddie echoes, suitably sceptical. 

"Just looking forward to the show, Fred," Brian says, straightening up when a harrassed-looking stagehand appears in the doorway. Roger quickly ducks out of Freddie's line of sight and hurries out into the corridor.

" _Oh_ —a likely story," Freddie splutters, letting himself be ushered out after Roger by a fond but mostly exasperated John. 

"What? Am I not allowed to smile just for the sake of it?" 

"It  _is_ a bit suspicious," John says mildly and it's Brian's turn to splutter. 

The bickering continues until they're literally seconds away from getting on stage. 

"You can't hide from me forever, you know," Freddie says in a tone that's genuinely threatening. 

Brian just snorts, grin vanishing in shadow as the lights go down and the pink and blue stage lights go up and when he moves to get past Roger onto the stage he brushes his knuckles against the back of Roger's hand, purposeful enough to leave the skin there tingling. 

Freddie's gasp of realization is audible even over the roar of the crowd. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> me vs my anxiety vs fact-checking at 3 AM


End file.
